The Australian National University will house an organisation made up of the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft and help influence the growth of the world wide web.
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The Canberra university has been chosen to host the Australian branch of the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, an international pool of more than 400 member organisations founded by the inventor of the internet.
Manager Armin Haller said the Australian office would help shape the standards underpinning the workings of the web, like HTML, as the internet continued to affect every aspect of global business.
The work of Canberra-based researchers will shape our computer habits, including how we shop online.
"If you look at how Airbnb or Uber is changing the accommodation industry or the taxi industry, nowadays the web isn't only about Google of Facebook or data companies," he said.
"It's about changing the business models of all kinds of companies."
Dr Haller said the consortium was considering broadening the web, which was where the ANU came into play.
"Where change is happening is in the vertical domains – things like web payments, digital publishing, linked open data, web of things and web security – these are areas our researchers are already involved in."
Changes to web payments would create a more secure environment to hand over credit card details amid an online shopping boom.
"In the last couple of days, we've had a couple of conversations with companies, the big financials here and some payment providers, who are interested in how payments on the web are standardised," Dr Haller said.
"When you go to any kind of shop and you buy something on the web, you basically go through a payment provider, which then communicates with your bank. Your security is dependent on the provider rather than a standard through the W3C.
"If you shop [online] overseas, what you really want to do is pay through a provider that is local, you want to pay through . . . a payment provider you trust. That can only happen if there's one standard for payments on the web."
The global consortium, which was founded in 1994 by web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has overseen more than 345 technical standards.
As the host of the Australian office, the ANU will also help develop relationships with local technology and policy leaders and promote the implementation of consortium standards.
Dr Haller said the office would be jointly hosted by the ANU's College of Business and Economics and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
"The ANU, the College of Economics together with the College of Engineering and Computer Science, is really quite well placed to cover both aspects: the computer aspects and the business aspects. It's a good fit," Dr Haller said.
The consortium's global business development lead, J. Alan Bird, agreed the ANU was the perfect fit.
"After a comprehensive review of other universities and non-profit organisations in Australia, we have determined that ANU is the right partner to help W3C succeed in advancing its mission and serving the needs of key communities in technology, research, business and industry and government sectors in Australia," he said.
"We very much look forward to working with expert academic and professional staff from the ANU."
ANU's business and economics dean, Professor Shirley Leitch, said hosting the consortium would give staff and researchers a voice and the opportunity to work with companies like Google, Microsoft, Alibaba and Apple.
ANU's engineering and computer science dean, Professor Elanor Huntington, said the university would integrate the consortium's ideas and developments into its teaching.
